Hanaa Edward congratulated on International Peace Award

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: Two leading Iraqi Civil Society Activists have congratulated the Iraqi Human Rights Activist, Hanaa Edward, on the occasion of granting her the Sean McBride Peace Award, calling on Iraqi officials to take similar steps.   “Hanaa Edward deserves the greatest awards, but we had been wishful that a similar award would be granted by the Iraqi Civil Society Organizations and not from abroad, because Edward was the leading woman voice calling for the Iraqi Human Rights,” the Activist Najim Abed Deidan told IraqiNews.com news agency.   “She deserves the award, because she had worked in the Iraqi Civil Society since the early 1990s and till now,” Deidan said, adding that the award “should encourage all activists to follow her steps, because her voice to boost the activity of the Civil Society in Iraq couldn’t be ignored.”   On her part, the Iraqi Acivist Vian al-Sheikh Ali, said: “I am proud of the award the Activist Hanaa Edward got, being an award for all Iraqi women activists and the Iraqi Civil Society, though she deserves more than an award in this respect.”   “Hanaa Edward possesses a long history in this respect, as she had been awarded several international certificates and appreciation letters, highlighting her activity in Iraq; so, we weren’t surprised for granting her the said International Award,” she said.   “We hope that Iraqi officials would follow the same course of the International Organizations, though it had been better if the Iraqi officials themselves would appreciate the activity of Iraqi Women and awarding them ,” Vian Sheikh Ali said.   Noteworthy is that the World Peace Bureau had decided in its meeting, held in Paris on August 28th, to grant the Iraqi Human Rights Activist, Hanaa Edward the International “Sean McBride” Award for the year 2011.   Hanaa Edward, born in southern Iraq’s Basra city in 1946, had jointed the Iraqi Women Organization in her youth and was detained in 1963.   After that she managed to escape from prison to move to Germany, where she represented the Iraqi Women Organization in the International Women Federation in the 1970s, and then she flew to Lebanon and then to Syria, where she played a leading role in the struggler against the dictatorship in Iraq.   She then joined al-Ansar (Supporters) in Iraqi Kurdistan, after her formation of the Iraqi Al-Amal (Hope) Society in Damascus and moved to Iraq, where she stayed in Arbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, till 1996.   After the downfall of the former Iraqi regime in 2003, she moved her main bureau to Baghdad, where she played a leading role in the establishment of the Iraqi Women Network, comprising 80 women organizations.   SKH (TF)/SR 515